University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses Dissertations and Theses July 2017 A Lesson in Loving the Word: Translating Clarice Lispector into Polish Agnieszka Gabor University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2 Part of the Portuguese Literature Commons, and the Translation Studies Commons Recommended Citation Gabor, Agnieszka, "A Lesson in Loving the Word: Translating Clarice Lispector into Polish" (2017). Masters Theses. 505. https://doi.org/10.7275/9992884 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/505 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Lesson in Loving the Word: Translating Clarice Lispector into Polish A Thesis Presented by AGNIESZKA GABOR Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2017 Lusophone Literatures and Cultures Spanish and Portuguese Program Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures A Lesson in Loving the Word: Translating Clarice Lispector into Polish A Thesis Presented by AGNIESZKA GABOR Approved as to style and content by ______________________________________________________ Daphne Patai, Chair _______________________________________________________ Margara Russotto, Member _______________________________________________________ Robert Rothstein, Member _________________________________________ Luiz Amaral, Unit Program Director Spanish & Portuguese Unit Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures _________________________________________ William Moebius, Department Chair Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the Committee Members: Prof. Daphne Patai for her patience, intellectual guidance, and immense knowledge; Prof. Margara Russotto for her optimism and for allowing me to share my fascination of Clarice with her; and Prof. Bob Rothstein for helping me with my first translations of Lispector into Polish. I also wish to thank Yvonne, Kate, Alex, Garrett, and Michael for their time and help with proofreading my thesis. I am also grateful to my husband, Caitano, for his support and for always believing in me, especially in the (many) moments of doubt I experienced throughout the entire process. I am thankful to my parents, my brother and his family, and my friends – although we live far away from each other, your love and support is what keeps me going every day. Last but not least, I want to thank Maluszek – the Little One – my main motivation behind concluding this project. I cannot wait to welcome you to the world. Permission to include the translated works of Clarice Lespector is on file at the Graduate School. iii ABSTRACT A LESSON IN LOVING THE WORD: TRANSLATING CLARICE LISPECTOR INTO POLISH MAY 2017 AGNIESZKA GABOR, B.A., ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY IN POZNAŃ, POLAND M.A., ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY IN POZNAŃ, POLAND M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Daphne Patai The goal of this thesis is to discuss Clarice Lispector in the Polish context and address the potential gaps in the reception of her oeuvre. Since the principal vehicle of popularizing her writing outside of the Portuguese-speaking world is translation, my thesis also examines the current situation of the Polish translations of Lispector’s work. Based on my research, I contend that the angle of interpretation related to Lispector’s literary awareness has not been well explored in Poland. Given that the perspective related to the creation process constitutes a recurrent characteristic of Lispector’s narrative, I provide a textual analysis of four short stories which specifically deal with this aspect of her writing: “O ovo e a galinha” [The Egg and the Chicken], “A quinta história” [The Fifth Story], “Seco estudo de cavalos” [Dry Sketch of Horses], and “O relatório da coisa” [Report on the Thing]. In order to address and promote this sphere of Lispector studies in Poland, I propose a translation of the above-mentioned four short stories, followed by a description of the challenges I have encountered as a translator of iv Lispector’s complex poetics. A survey of the most influential translation theories contextualizes both the suggested translations of Lispector’s stories and my own translation experience. With this project, I aim to reintroduce, revitalize, and rewrite – in the form of the presented textual analyses and the proposed translations – Clarice Lispector’s work in the Polish context. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................iii ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................iv CHAPTER INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1 1. CLARICE LISPECTOR IN THE WORLD: A CRITICAL RECEPTION …............................8 Clarice Lispector in Brazil ..................................................................................................8 Clarice Lispector in the United States of America ...........................................................17 Clarice Lispector in France ...............................................................................................24 Clarice Lispector in Poland ...............................................................................................30 2. “THE WORD IS MY FOURTH DIMENSION: TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF “O OVO E A GALINHA” AND “A QUINTA HISTÓRIA” .............................................................................39 Clarice Lispector on the Art of Short Story Writing..........................................................39 Now Serving: Philosophy, Feminism, and Literary Awareness: Analysis of “O ovo e a galinha” ……………………………………….................................................................43 (Un)necessary Disinfestation: The Case of “A quinta história” .......................................55 3. ON THE VERGE OF REALITY: TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF “SECO ESTUDO DE CAVALOS” AND “O RELATÓRIO DA COISA” .....................................................................69 Horses as Words: Textual Analysis of “Seco estudo de cavalos” ....................................69 Anti-Literature Is Still Literature: “O relatório da coisa” .................................................83 4. CLARICE LISPECTOR: THE TRANSLATOR, THE TRANSLATED, AND THE TO-BE- TRANSLATED ..........................................................................................................................101 Clarice Lispector on Being Translated and on Translation ............................................101 Let the Translators Speak: The Challenges of Translating Clarice Lispector ................111 Theoretical Approaches to Translating Clarice Lispector …..........................................120 vi 5. THE ADVENTURE HAS JUST STARTED: TRANSLATING CLARICE LISPECTOR INTO POLISH ............................................................................................................................134 Clarice Lispector in Polish: What Already Exists ..........................................................134 My Experience with Translating Clarice Lispector ........................................................148 Translating Clarice Lispector into Polish: What Is Next? ..............................................155 CONCLUSION: A LESSON LEARNED ..................................................................................159 APPENDICES A. LUSOPHONE LITERATURE IN POLISH TRANSLATION .................................164 B. MY TRANSLATIONS ..............................................................................................177 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................208 vii INTRODUCTION All the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes. It was ever so. /Clarice Lispector The Hour of the Star, trans. Benjamin Moser/ Nearly forty years after her death and after more than seventy years of critical analysis of her writing, Clarice Lispector continues to inspire readers and critics to discover yet another angle of interpretation of her works. Clarice remains a mystery, a question, an enigma, although she herself disagreed with such a view, saying: “my mystery lies in not having mystery.”1 She was even reluctant to reveal her birth date and often gave misleading answers to critics and biographers. The officially adopted version is that she was born on December 10, 1920 in Chechelnik, Ukraine. She died on December 9, 1977 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Described by the scholar and translator Gregory Rabassa as “that rare person who looked like Marlene Dietrich and wrote like Virginia Woolf,” Clarice has extended her aura of mystery onto her writing, considered by many critics as difficult to categorize: “blunt and pungent yet also intellectual and abstract” (Salamon).